Site Search Navigation

Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

Supported by

Federal Judge Will Decide Who Owns Tavern’s Name

By Glenn Collins December 1, 2009 3:11 pmDecember 1, 2009 3:11 pm

In the increasingly messy bankruptcy of Tavern on the Green, a federal judge on Tuesday handed New York City its first victory in a legal battle over who owns the name of the landmark restaurant in Central Park.

Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, in federal court for the Southern District in Manhattan, ruled that she, and not a judge in United States Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, would decide the ownership issue. The ownership of the name has been a flash point in the bankruptcy, since the name is potentially Tavern’s most valuable asset.

Judge Cedarbaum said she would consider the issue later this month, because “I do not want to delay the bankruptcy.” Under the federal judicial bureaucracy, bankruptcy court is subordinate when the district court asserts its jurisdiction.

“This is a huge victory for the city,” said Gerald E. Singleton, senior intellectual property lawyer for the New York City Law Department, “since this court is familiar with the issues.”

Warner LeRoy, who died in 2001 at the age of 65 — and whose family holds the license to the restaurant under the name Tavern on the Green Limited Partnership — trademarked the restaurant’s name in the 1981. According to Michael Desiderio, Tavern’s chief operating officer for the LeRoy family, the Tavern on the Green name has been appraised at $19 million. In addition to running the restaurant, the LeRoys market a line of Tavern on the Green salad dressings and gift items.

But in its legal filings the city has said that “there is no proof that the trademark has a value of $19 million,” and “much less any value to anyone other than the city,” since the Tavern name “is associated in the minds of consumers with a specific place and location.”

Dean J. Poll, who runs the Boathouse restaurant in Central Park, was awarded the city’s new license to run Tavern starting Jan. 1, 2010. His lawyer, Barry B. LePatner, has said that, regarding the restaurant’s name, “the only prospective purchaser is Dean Poll — and he is not paying very much for it — nickels and dimes.”

Judge Cedarbaum said that bankruptcy courts “don’t routinely determine who owns a trademark,” adding that “trademark law is something that this court regularly examines.”

Norman N. Kinel, lawyer for the committee of Tavern’s 452 unsecured creditors, said he was pleased that the proceeding would be expedited, adding that he was sure that the judge “will rule on the merits.”

The restaurant’s name was bestowed in 1934, when Robert Moses was parks commissioner. Mr. Desiderio has said that the license to run Tavern, won by Mr. LeRoy in 1973, acquired its value in 1976 after the impresario renovated and reopened it as one of the nation’s most popular and lucrative restaurants. He said the LeRoys have proof of the legality of the original trademark registration and proof that the family has successfully defended the trademark through the years, and added that the city never challenged the trademark.

The city has countered aggressively in its legal filings, charging that the Tavern trademark owned by Mr. Warner’s daughter Jennifer Oz LeRoy, the restaurant’s chief executive, was “fraudulently obtained.” On Tuesday, Mr. Singleton mentioned again “the issue of fraud.”

In a nine-page filing on Monday before Judge Cedarbaum, the city said that the position of Tavern and its creditors “grossly mischaracterizes the facts,” making a case that the LeRoy ownership was “a mere licensee operating the restaurant for the city’s benefit.”

Mr. Kinel and managers of Tavern and the labor union representing some 400 workers at the restaurant, the New York Hotel Trades Council, said the trademark issue goes to the core of the bankruptcy, given the possible value of the trademark.

But in several written arguments, the city has said that the trademark dispute is not a “core issue” in relation to United States bankruptcy code, and raises “complex issues under federal and state trademark law.”

Judge Cedarbaum agreed Tuesday that “the adversary issues in this case are not core issues.”